Specialty Applicants: Athletics

Finding Your Balance—Applying as a Student-Athlete

Here for Each STAGE of Your Young Scholar’s Academic Journey

Our young athletes are groundbreakers, inspiring with their skill and vision in their respective sports. Our role in their lives is a very specific one. For young student-athletes and their families, we are the critical agents of balance—between their scholarly lives and their athletic lives. Gaining admission to top sports programs that are housed in prestigious universities can be daunting. An athlete-applicant must aim to be just as strong in their scholarly merits as they are in their athletic ones, because they will be evaluated by eyes both in their respective athletic program of interest and in the admissions department for the university more broadly.

Constructing balanced applications for young athletes and their families requires consistent compromise between simultaneous demands, and thus requires a connectedness with the granular detail of dual timelines and admissions requirements, and an ability to navigate a path in-between. Further, for young-athletes, there is often highly technical information that is needed for proper evaluation of things like their recruitment/training timelines and evaluation of program offers and options. We serve a vital hub role for gathering and connecting information sources from both the athletic and academic sides of the coin and are happy to coordinate the inputs of outside technical experts and build toward a balanced and winning application.

Putting your best foot forward in the admissions process—athletically and academically

Admission to your child’s ideal situation—where they can balance their athletic and academic goals in an environment that is all them—can be a difficult task. While they may meet the athletic standards of a given university, they may fall short of the academic standards needed, or vice-versa. Through meticulous planning and execution of a dual timeline that balances recruiting with academic and admissions development we can help your child to turn their duality into the best asset in their admissions effort—allowing their athletic accomplishments to act as a door-opener to admissions opportunities, and boosting their academic and admissions portfolio to create new opportunities as an athlete.

Integrating recruiting into your student’s admissions timelines

Having an admissions consultant onboard, who understands and is fully tuned-in to the demands and structure of your child’s athletics pathway, is an invaluable asset for your child to ultimately reach their best admissions outcomes. We create admissions plans that are built around your child’s recruiting events, competitions, as well as the seasonality of their sport, to allow them to position themselves as distinctive student-athletes within the admissions process. State finals? Summer recruiting camps? Season and off-season? We help our families plan in things like test prep, essay writing, and leadership activities within the structure of a athletic timeline.

Working with my tutor was an absolute pleasure. He is knowledgeable, experienced, competent, and he genuinely cares about your success. It’s very easy for me to say that without his help, I would not have been able to achieve my goals.

–j.s., los angeles, CA - student, U.C.L.A.

Crafting a winning admissions profile

In a highly competitive admissions climate, the admissions profile of a student athlete must, for most athletes, have considerably more nuance to it than in times past. We will help your family understand, plan and implement a third dimension to you student-athlete’s admissions profile—helping identify and develop opportunities for accumulating momentum and accolades behind a career interest, or building extracurricular leadership trajectories more broadly. Secondly, by helping your student convey through their essays their unique and fully-developed applicant profile, we can assure that your child will have their best foot-forward before an admissions committee.

Contact with coaches: Negotiating best outcomes

Contact with coaches, through recruiting events and/or direct communication, is by far one of the most powerful tools in your student-athlete’s admissions tool bag. We will help your family to understand, plan and implement the timing and format of best contact, and think through the mindset of coaches as they consider your child within their team and program-building processes for the year. Maintaining contact as coaches’ decision-windows narrow and being thoughtful and clear through any negotiation, or with offers, can often mean the difference between your child getting into their ideal college or not. We help our families to position their student-athletes for true admissions success.

Your Admissions Roadmap

We combine time-tested trajectories with our bespoke service model to help our students and their families carve out unique admissions pathways that are backed by expert guidance—so your child gains admission to their dream schools, where they can truly thrive.

Initial exploratory meeting

The first step—establishing a set of goals that are flexible to change while concentrated upon your family’s highest goals.

Ongoing prep & assessment

Test preparation and developing a college list are pathways that are intertwined and grow together. Score increases bring new colleges into the fold, and newly considered colleges can conversely push upon existing score targets.

Application, prep & tours

In the latter stages of prep, college lists and score targets jointly narrow, and efforts become focused around gathering information on, and applying successfully to, the top colleges on a family’s list.

Deciding & responding to offers

Cue the confetti showers. The time has come to reap the rewards of your high school career and all your admissions prep. We’re here to help you and your family weigh offers and make the big decision.

Assuring readiness

You’ve made it to your dream school, now make sure you’re ready to hit the ground running and truly get the most out of your college experience. Through a combination of in-house college readiness coaching and connecting you with the right pre-college programs suited to your major, we’ll have you ready to go.

Let’s get your JOURNEY started

No matter where you’re at in your admissions journey, we can provide the resources and guidance you’ll need to achieve your college admissions dreams.